


silently flows the river to the sea (as the barges do go silently)

by gootarts



Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe-Low Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21624766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gootarts/pseuds/gootarts
Summary: Natsuhi had heard the stories, but had never quite believed in them; the mysterious lightermen, tasked to wander the rivers of the world in search of something. At least, not until she hitches a ride with one.
Relationships: Sayo Yasuda & Natsuhi Ushiromiya
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	silently flows the river to the sea (as the barges do go silently)

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from an old campfire song. 
> 
> note: a lighterman is somebody who operates a barge, and a quant pole is what you use to push a barge. they’ve both more or less fallen out of service as a word along with the profession.

With the vision of the ferry disappearing quickly over the horizon, Natsuhi Ushiromiya wondered how she got into this mess.

She’d gone to pay a visit to her family’s old shrine, a backwater place some many miles up the river from the family’s manor in a seaside city. It was a strange, surreal type of experience, setting foot somewhere she had last visited over two decades ago, her childhood home. Even despite those hundreds of old memories of her and her mother talking together here, those two decades of not even setting foot in the area was still such a span that she almost didn’t believe it when that memo had come through the mail, flown in by a pigeon that barely stopped to let her take the letter from its foot before trying to escape through the window. 

_ Wake and funeral for Chizue. Please attend. _

She barely even knew how they got her address; Kinzo had forbid everything once she’d had to discard her old family name-contact, visitations, even letters. It was some sort of sick, obsessed worry about her running away, forever sundering the name of one of the largest trading companies on the coast. The only reason she was able to write to them after the wedding was Krauss, trying to extend an olive branch to his new bride by sneaking out letters to her family under the guise of mailing business documents. 

The head had finally calmed down on that front after she’d had Jessica. At that point, their letters had gone from frequent to one every several months- it was a surprise that she’d even gotten word that she’d died in a timely manner, no less an invitation to the wake, but she was grateful. 

She was less so for Kinzo, who had huffed for a moment as he approved the request to travel before appending a very poignant  _ only you are to attend  _ to the end as he returned to rant at the sky. 

The main home was buried by forests and mountains, fitting for a family of priests. Only slow, winding trails were able to connect it to the outside world. Any bandit unfortunate to choose the meandering trails as their domain would swiftly be dealt with by nature itself. Save for the rare, guarded caravan, the roads were barren of any money flowing up the trails. Such was one of the reasons she had first been selected not as a financial hostage; as a statement, a pointed  _ you will not have money to maintain your land unless you marry my son. _

But now those winding roads, those trails barely touched by human hands were to her detriment. There would be no transport back to the seaside, by either land or sea, for the next several weeks. The single beacon she had chosen to bring her back, an old biweekly ferry, was now out of sight, not able to see her running along the edge of the river, screaming as she hiked up her skirt to move. But the river, a slowly churning mass of frothy water, did not care. It toiled on, indifferent to the fact that Krauss, Jessica would both worry, roaring at her like the head did, turning a blind eye to her pleas. It did not care that the monsoon season was starting, not that her clothes, soaking wet, clinging to every centimeter of her skin. That force, that combination of nature and pure force, continued, as if to mock her as her last way back slowly disappeared over the horizon, leaving her to do nothing but groan and lean against a tree. 

Already, that ever-present headache had begun to flare again behind her eyes even as she pinched her nose to ward them off. The rain, falling lightly with no chance of stopping, given the area, did not help. She remembered her childhood well enough to recall those long spring months; constantly either damp or actively showering. Even in just the couple days since she arrived, the shoreline had already advanced a good meter as her feet sunk deep into the soft earth.

She was the only one here. Nobody else, nothing but the smell of rain, the soft forest, all wrapping around her like a blanket as she slowly traced her frantic steps back to the pier. The rain had that characteristic spring warmth to it as it peppered her body, smelling like life itself crammed into a single scent. The ferns, reaching for the river, and moss blanketing the trees, were the only ones to comfort her as the trees overhead of the forest caught most of the water, leaves, occasionally pattering down in massive droplets to the forest floor. 

She wasn’t sure why she stayed there. Some hope, maybe, that nature itself would bend to the word  _ Ushiromiya _ like so many of the family’s business partners. That maybe, even invoking the family crest, the eagle that she was only permitted to engrave in spirit upon her beating heart, would soothe things over like she was used to. But it did not. It did not even grant her the knowledge of time as the ash-colored clouds blotted out the sun, as the rain soaking through her clothing placed her in some sort of trance that kept her feet glued to the pier. 

But, it did grant her a single fragment of knowledge as she spotted something upriver, barely a dot on the horizon.

As it approached, the shape became more defined; a long barge, flat, a small wooden ceiling protecting the bulk of the deck from the rain. Neither it nor its passenger made no sound above the rush of the water, both almost motionless as they watch the scenery float by.The passenger was the sole person aboard, with medium-length brown hair, and glassy eyes the color of the sea. Her plain clothes clung tight to her body from the rain, but her slender limbs sprung into action when her eyes gazed upon Natsuhi, standing idly on the pier. It took her a moment to detangle a large, sturdy pole from the ship’s hull before pressing it deep into the river to guide the boat, the bottom of the hull brushing up gently against the wooden docks as she tilted her head to the side. 

There was something strange about her. The way she approached the pier, despite the ferry, which must have passed her earlier. It would only be natural to assume she was waiting for somebody to arrive. And the strange way she spoke, her soft, “do you need anything?” nothing like the harsh waters she was floating on. She was a stranger, but there was something familiar, something tugging at the back of her mind, trudging up decades-old memories of her sitting on her mother’s lap, her ghostly voice drowning out the one in the back of her head screaming  _ danger _ ! over and over. 

“ _ You never heard of the lightermen, Nappi?” _

_ She was reading an old record and had pointed to the strange word that popped up with the tiny, chubby hands of a child as she shook her head no. _

_ “Hmmm. Well, they’re a type of sailor. But they’re a bit different from the ones that pass in and out through here. They all have their own really tiny boats, and they’re all trying to sail away from their old life. I think your great-uncle had a couple stories about sailing with them. I’ve met a couple myself. They’re all very nice, so if you meet one, be nice back. They’ll offer the clothes off their backs and take you to the ends of the earth, they have to, if you show them proper respect.” _

_ “What if they don’t want to?” _

_ “See, that’s the thing, Nappi. They don’t need to ferry you, but they can’t hurt you.” She put on a scary face, the kind that would frighten any kid. “Those who break those rules never live to see another sundown.” _

She took another breath. There were more stories from her mom, of course. Many, many more. About ones she’d met once, two ships passing in the night, or tales from friends of friends. But she’d never really believed them. The people in question could just be lonely fishermen, looking to weave tall tales about waters far beyond the ones they’ve traveled, not mysterious figures that seemed to glide across the water like in her stories. But something about this woman just felt strange, somehow. She wasn’t sure what; the odd aura, despite her normal appearance. The fact that she was piloting this almost matchbox-sized barge in the middle of a rainstorm, twisting and turning around the fallen trees and runoff debris littering the river when any other sane person in such a small vessel would have docked it and called it a night. Sure, the ferry could survive a downpour, but that was due to its size. This thing, in contrast, looked like it could be tossed in the air by the waves like a toy. 

And her eyes, her eyes. There was something about them, like they could see right through her, see her soul, see everything. She could, at the very least, see her confusion; she got asked that same question again, the same “do you need anything?”

Natsuhi only  _ glanced _ downriver, where the ferry had left, before the woman seemed to get the gist, meeting her gaze properly for the first time as she stepped out from the top of the barge, wrapping a rope around the pier first. She was barefoot as well, her weight balanced upon her heels like a sailor. 

“I’m also heading downriver.” She tilted her head again before typing a knot around the stump-an anchor hitch, recognized from hours of dealing with sailors in Krauss’ stead on the docks. “Would you like to join me?”

Ah. She was technically in need, wasn’t she? If those rules, those rules that she never truly  _ believed _ , were real, she couldn’t be refused. She couldn’t be harmed. But more importantly, there was just...something about this strange woman who deftly tied sailor’s hitches in the pouring rain, staking her life on a single small boat. 

In the plays she attended, there was always some moment where the hero asks somebody to run away with him. Or, sometimes, with her, or with them. It was never something she understood; why should one give their otherwise good life up for a mere chance? To abandon everybody they had known and cared about just for a promise? But there was something about her that almost felt like that, like maybe, just maybe, this feeling was what those actors on stage were trying to emulate. What were her other choices? To burden her mourning family with another mouth to feed for another couple days? Or to climb aboard here, to swallow her pride as a noblewoman and leave on a small, rickety craft so she could see her family? 

Well, there was one obvious choice for her, at least.

“Will you be traveling to one of the cities? Near to the coast?” The main Ushiromiya estate was there, tucked away safely inside the city.

The woman nodded. 

“May I…?” It was unbecoming for a woman of her stature to head onto one of the barges like this, but it was the only viable option, and the brunette, while she was almost wraithlike, seemed kind as she stepped aside, allowing her to step onto the barge. 

The vessel itself was small; maybe a half dozen meters long maximum, with the spaces between the massive logs that made up the hull covered in black pitch to protect them from mold. There was a small canopy over the top to protect from the rain pit-pattering over her head; it doesn’t protect the deck from getting wet from both river and rain, but it was more than enough room and protection to keep her and her host from getting completely drenched. There was a single hatch leading belowdecks in the middle of the boat, raised just so slightly to protect it from water running across the deck.It was small. Claustrophobic. But there was no other way to travel in a half-timely manner, not during this season, with water blanketing the roads. Despite the fact that she had only just met this woman, there was a small, insistent voice in the back of her head, whispering that she was safe in her late mother’s voice.

She took a small, shaking step onto the barge, lifting her skirts as she lifted her luggage in turn a moment later, watching as the woman untied the rope around the pier, lifting that ferryman’s oar and jamming it into the dock to push off. It takes a moment as the full force of her weight presses against the paddle before the river finally gives up its hold of the boat and pier alike to laze grumpily down the middle of the river. As it reached that centerfold, the waves almost seemed to calm, with the ebb of the water gently pulling the craft downstream. 

As the boat began to drift, so too did the woman as she walked to the bow of the barge to tuck her legs in under herself, letting the rain wash over her just outside the reach of the canopy. There was no movement or sound from her after as she rain cascaded down her back, her eyes motionlessly watching the vessel obediently follow the flow of the river.

Almost to copy her, Natsuhi followed her example. In a way, this type of awkward silence was preferable to talking; it was the bread and butter of the upper class, ingredients she knew how to work with. If she wished to be left to her own silence, she would be left to her own silence, without any protest on Natsuhi’s part. She could entertain herself; she had her diary, and the ship itself.

At the very least, she feels bad thinking of it as dingy before stepping onto it. The wood was a deep maple, almost a reflection of the syrup Jessica loved to cover her food with as the deep pitch coated some of the boards. The deck, sanded and worn down be feet over the years, seemed polished. Krauss did business with a small fleet of boats and ships who run up and down the coastline like those sandpipers who darted back and forth with the tide, but even though this vessel was dwarfed by those massive ships, it had an air of affection to it; better maintained than any of the ships she’s seen in the docks. As she leaned her head towards the sky, she noticed images etched into the roof.

Had it been in a different time, a different place, it may have been beautiful. Once of the places she went for her honeymoon, perhaps. A couple small candles or a network of canals instead of an angry river could have turned it into a beautiful sight, the kind of experience that was over before you wanted it to end. Her throbbing headache was already lessening as she closed her eyes, listening to the sound of water. She wasn’t even sure if she drifted off to sleep or not before she was nudged from her spot, resting on the hatch. 

She opened her eyes to the woman again, who took the time to rummage belowdecks for dried meat. It wasn’t anything special, just dried strips, and she took it thankfully. The woman, a moment later, sat opposite her as she ate, watching with a strange kind of authority before speaking. 

“Do you have a name? I’m Shannon.” 

“My name is Natsuhi, of the Ushiromiya family.” 

“What is it like?” 

The blank look she got was probably to be expected, to be fair. Anybody familiar with business had probably negotiated with them at some point, but somebody living alone on the water, would not be privy to such matters.he added a moment later, “it’s one of the larger trading companies. We oversee trading over near the coast, and trade primarily in food and precious metals.” It was a speech she’d given so often at introductions and social events that she could rattle it off in her sleep, but the ferryman just shook her head. 

“No, what your family is like.” 

“Family?” It was her turn to be confused as she tipped her head to the side. 

“Forgive me for intruding, but you have a wedding ring on your hand.” She nodded to the ring on her left ring finger; simple, silver, slightly off-color from tarnish. There was the symbol of the family, the one-winged eagle, stamped into the metal, the single eagle she was allowed to wear. Gently, Natsuhi moved her right hand to touch the warm metal; it’s had been a part of her for so many decades that it slipped her mind that it even existed. 

“No, it’s fine.” Of all the topics, it was strange to bring that up. Or perhaps that was just the company she kept; she could rattle all the Ushiromiya business associates off the top of her head, sorted into categories of trustworthiness no less (trustworthy, questionable but reliable, and ‘convinced that unicorn horn farming will be the next Big Thing’ being the major ones), give basic statements about the family’s current financial situation, but family—she didn’t have a pre-written script for that as she paused to think. 

“I have one child, and a husband. His name is Krauss, and the child’s name is Jessica.” 

“What are they like?” Despite the careful tone of the question, there was a spark of life under her gaze, a kind of intensity that told Natsuhi that she was genuinely curious, not just trying to make small talk. Perhaps that had to do with the way she lived; the fishermen and sailors at the port were always trying to socialize after months on the water. 

_ The lightermen are all bound to the river in search of something,  _ those memories in the back of her head whispered, and her thoughts drifted for just a second to what the girl was searching for. Being on the river alone like this probably made her lonely. 

“Krauss is headstrong… but he has a good heart.” She sighed, trying to find words to describe the two of them. It took a moment for something about her daughter to get past the mental filter of  _ Jessica doesn’t take anything seriously, and acts too tomboyish for her own good. _ “Jessica takes after her father-she’s picked up boxing from him. She’s started bringing brass knuckles with her everywhere, for if she gets into a fight. I keep telling her to stop, but she still sneaks them into her jacket.” 

Shannon only gave a small smile at that as her mind almost paused. Krauss and Jessica were her family, yes. Just the two of them; no more, no less. There was not a third person, nor was there ever any chance of there being a third person. She had made that decision years ago, even if her dreams were still tinged with twinges of regret. But, for all her strange, piercing gaze, Shannon did not seem to notice Natsuhi’s hesitation as she replied. 

“If she’s expressing and standing up for herself, that’s not a bad thing. Being forced to always play the part of an ideal maiden can feel suffocating. You start to feel like there is nobody you can turn to but yourself.” That sense of melancholy derailed Natsuhi’s train of thought. Her gaze drifted over to the water, before the lighterman realized herself and sat up with a start, awkwardly waving her hands around to dismiss the point. “B-but otherwise, how is Krauss? How did you two meet?”

_ Her parents had come into her room at the age of eighteen, so solemn that she had thought a family member had died. And slowly, they’d shown her the letter, not mincing any words, that declared that the head of the Ushiromiya family would be willing to forgive their many debts in exchange for Natsuhi to marry his first son.  _

_ She’d overheard the hushed voices that always quieted down when she entered the room, and knew very well the level of financial difficulty they were having. Marrying her off like this was likely the only way they could conceivably come out of the current situation while still retaining some vague shred of dignity. But it was still insulting-the head had never even met Natsuhi before. There was no doubt that he saw her as nothing less than a trophy.  _

_ Even with that, with the knowledge that she’d have to leave her home to marry some man he barely met descended from a demon of a man, she still agreed to it. In the hour before she was married, dressed from head to toe in a snow-white gown, her mother had hugged her, kissed her on the forehead, and gently slipped a mirror into her hands.  _

“He’s a good man, but...it’s a long story.” Shannon gratefully picked up the cue to not press the exact matter further as she switched topics without a hitch to Jessica once again. For somebody who seemed to live on the water, her ability to keep a conversation’s momentum going couple matched that of any of the people she talked to regularly. She was an enthusiastic listener, and seemed to love to press the details; her life, Krauss, everything. A couple details were changed on her end (Krauss’ obsession with his more…’revolutionary’ business partners was glossed over), but at the end of the day, she’s smiling a little as she speaks. 

Twilight on the river was beautiful. The entire world was colored beautiful shades of grey as their boat passes, though her experience gently reminded her to not strain her eyes to see, else the throbbing behind her temples would return in force. 

As the sky dims, the sun still covered by the rain clouds enough so that the only metric of time passing was the amount of light, she realizes that Shannon was still an enigma. She had no age, nor any hobbies. Just a name and a barge. 

She decides to question Shannon in the morning as she pawed around belowdecks for a single, deeply uncomfortable bed, the kind that would result in an instant firing if she ever caught a servant making it. But with a lighterman, the matter was ignored. Such things were best left not mentioned.

Surprisingly, she falls asleep quickly. 

* * *

The next morning, she awakens to the sound of rain hitting the boat. Given the place, perhaps that was expected; rain was an omnipresent part of her childhood, so it only made sense that it would carry on, not caring about her age. As she stumbled out of the hatch, bumping her head on the low ceiling, the low light of morning came into view, the dawn blotted out by those same heavy gunmetal clouds. Shannon, too, was blotted out. In her place was a man, watching the river crash on ahead, surging at the tops of the banks, eating into whatever shallow-rooted plants that were foolish enough to dare tread upon the banks. He was about Shannon’s age, his hair the color of angry stormclouds with an expression to match as he caught a glimpse of her. 

“Who are you? Where is Shannon?” Instinctively, her hands went to hike up her skirts just a little, even if there was nowhere to flee besides the water churning below. When did he get on board? She didn’t feel the boat dock itself, and there surely wasn’t enough space belowdecks to stash another human without her finding them. Did this man take her out? 

His disinterested glance seemed to glaze over her. “There have only been two of us on board here.”

“ _ I asked where Shannon was! _ ” She hated raising her voice like this, to this man far younger than her who she barely knew anything about. She’d heard stories, passed around the dinner table from friends of friends, about such things that happened on the water. But he barely noticed her words before replying, it seemed. 

“I am a  _ lighterman _ . Treat me as such.” His words were growled out, barely audible above the roaring water as he stood up, his angry glare meeting her gaze, strengthened by years of dealing with boisterous nobles. This man wasn’t a noble; he was clad in plainclothes like Shannon was; a simple pair of shorts, a plain top. Nothing on his feet. He didn’t even have the height to intimidate; he was perhaps a half-dozen centimeters shorter than her, about the same height Shannon was, and through the clothes she could glimpse a scrawny frame. “My name is Kanon.”

When he said those magic words, clustered with that strange aura, that clicked, just a little. Like the calculated way he seemed to stride across the deck to her, his body seeming to anticipate any sudden jolts to the ship before they even happened. Even though she’d deemed the lighterman thing half-true, two lightermen to a single barge still felt off. Like those old stories, of princesses who couldn’t sleep just right until they had dug deep under their mattresses to find a single dried pea. She used to wonder how such a woman could ever sleep in a normal bed. For wouldn’t the gravel and bedsprings also wear upon her body? But, after a time, she stopped questioning such things. It was simply the way things were, and very little of what she could do would change it, just like those old stories. The princess would always find a happy ending, spirited away by a true love’s kiss. Or something, to that effect. There was no cut away to years later, when their kingdom was failing, or the princess couldn’t produce an heir. She was forced to give up those childhood fantasies long ago. Even if a couple still lingered, mere ghosts in the wind. 

Such was the same for the poor fools like the one in front of her that abandoned their charge, or attempted to place it upon another’s shoulders, according to those old tales, passed down not with pen and paper but mouth and tongue. No matter what happened-

_ No matter how hard the woman tried, her old childhood love would not awake, reduced to a mere breathing corpse, her hair fanned out around her face like a halo, for the dead had already claimed her as their own _

_ The man fell to the ground, his eyes nothing more than glass, his soul shattered like so many pieces of a mirror _

_ the thing that came back from the river was  _ **_not her mother_ **

-it was never good.

At least Kanon was quiet. He didn’t seem to mind the water constantly washing from the front of the hull to the end as he watched. The workers at the docks were like spiders, constantly clambering over and across their crafts, micromanaging every which way the thing turned. But, like Shannon, he seemed to have an innate trust of the river. The waves always seemed to crash just outside the deck, the rocks jutting out far away that the raft skirted them. Nothing like any of the other people on the river, not at all. It was the kind of calmness that quelled the anxiety screaming in the back of her head from loud screeching to mere whispers, taking her attention from the rapids to the boat once again, this time to the quant pole.

Kanon merely shot a glance her way when he noticed her touching it, but didn’t do anything past that. Like yesterday, it was tied to one of the pillars holding the ceiling, lodged out barely under the canopy and covered in carvings. Just from a glance, it was obvious where Kanon and Shannon would grip the long shaft, their hands wearing away the color and markings to a smooth, polished sheen. Butterflies and moths flitted across the surface, trapped in the wood by a skilled chisel. She wondered how many times his hands have traced this pole, like her hands were doing now. It had a heft not of weight, but of history, the kind of thing handed down from father to son in an endless cycle. From life to death, it had a purpose. 

She was absorbed in it so much that she almost didn’t notice the jolt as the barge stopped, the back dipping down just a tad as the water began to crash over it. Kanon seemed to appear over her shoulder, a hand extended as his eyes traced the pole. Nervously, she handed it over as he turned it over once, twice, before his hands slipped into those well-worn spaces on the wood. As his stance changed, his center of gravity shifting lower to brace himself, she noticed the rock sticking out just barely above the water, splitting the stream as it pinned the barge against it. 

With a grunt, he hefted it against the rock, the rain forcing his clothes to cling to his narrow frame as he huffed and puffed for a moment, pressing his entire weight against the pole before it finally rewarded him with movement. As the barge returned to its path, drifting once again to the center, he looked almost like a mangy, drenched stray. Even  _ Jessica _ , with all her lessons on how to be a proper noble, had more muscle on her as he almost collapsed on the deck, saved only be leaning into a pillar. Not just his chest, but his entire body heaved as he breathed, like some sort of praying mantis or insect. There was definitely a form to his movements, and it almost made her curious-

“How long have you been doing this?”

Kanon shrugged. “A couple years,” he replied after a moment, leaning further against the canopy support. He couldn’t have been very much older than Jessica, despite his body being worn down like this as another question came unbidden to her lips. 

“What happens as you age?” Had Shannon been her age, would she have been able to navigate the boat like that without breaking something? And on top of that, what if he became injured? Would he be forced to continue?

His eyes drifted over to the horizon, still grey from the downpour. “By then, you usually find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

“Do you know what it is that you search for?” As with all stories, there was distortion over time; the fact it existed, the fact lightermen existed, those were the few constants in a bundle of stories whose details changed like vapor, shifting just slightly with each retelling.

“When you become one, you know what you want,” he said, eyes meeting hers for only a second as he sighed under his breath. “You get loaned power from the river in exchange, until you find it.”

With a start, he sat, ankles under his knees, once again. Right under the canopy, enough to not get drenched, but not enough to ward off the spray from a stray wave. He was silent, after that, save for reaching belowdecks to hand her some dried meat as the sky darkened and she headed down to sleep. As she was about to close the hatch, she got one last look at him, sitting motionless at the bow. 

“Are you going to stay out here?” 

“Somebody has to.”

“You can’t see anything, though.” 

She got another sigh from him as she mentioned it, gesturing for just a second to the heavy clouds blotting out all the light. “I make do.” 

* * *

The third time it happens, Natsuhi is reasonably sure she is starting to get used to this nonsense. On the third morning, both Kanon and Shannon are gone, replaced with a strange woman. 

Unlike the duo wearing plainclothes, her form was decorated-that was the only way to describe it, decorated, like a beautiful mantle or shelf-with a beautiful gown, damp from the rain. Her hair was tied in a messy bun as she almost lounged on the deck. It was a strange sight, this woman, who looks like she was torn, mysterious smile and all, out of a painting. The gown had the sheen of silk, a strange garment to wear on a boat- _ wouldn’t it drag her down if she ever tried to swim?- _ but she radiated that same aura the other two emanated as Natsuhi narrowed her eyes.

“How many others are there?” Even with the knowledge that she probably would not get a clear answer, the headache forming beneath her temples almost compelled her to ask.

“None! There is only me, you, and the water.” She rolled the kind of expression onto her face that she could only describe as that of the sailors on the coast when they had cracked a particularly clever joke, egged on by their comrades. 

“Where did Shannon go?” Of the three, she would rather have the one who was at least polite. 

“She’ll show up eventually.” At best, the tone could be described as flippant. At worst, obnoxious, the kind where she would not have hesitated in firing her if she was a servant. But she was not, and thus, she had to put up with whatever this woman’s problem was. She had the air of a mistress to her; the kind of woman whose posture would not reflect on her spouse, versus a noblewoman bound to duty. But the odds of such a thing happening in these circumstances were low.

“I don’t suppose that you are also a lighterman?” She had the weird aura, the obnoxious, vague personality that fit with a storybook character, and seemed to follow whatever the pattern the barge fit to.

“Hoh? Perceptive.” She shot Natsuhi an inelegant, wolflike grin as she adjusted her posture to somehow inflate to a point where she was more pompous than before. “I am Beatrice. Not many people still know the old legends.”

“I grew up in this area. My parents were priests.”

“An old profession.” She nodded appreciatively. “Almost as old as ours. Tell me, why did you not take up their mantle?”

The words  _ Kinzo Ushiromiya _ rose like bile to the back of her throat, coating it with acid as she swallowed them. “Arranged marriage.”

Her eyes closed just a beat too long for it to be a blink as her voice dropped, from the lighthearted joking of before to a more serious lower tone. “My condolences to the you that could’ve been.”

The apology made her pause, those two simple, sincere sentences that would have changed her world two decades ago as Beatrice gazed upon her. That version of Natsuhi, that priestess who had never experienced the torment of Ushiromiya Kinzo, nor the stress of managing the schedules and other numerous behind-the-scenes things that every noblewoman was expected to do, was something she wondered about sometimes. A version of herself whose life had not been sharply curtailed like it was at the tender age of twenty-one. 

“Thank you.“ That version of Natsuhi was dead. Dead, gone, departed on that same ferry that she had left on those decades ago, clinging nervously to just a suitcase and a notebook, hatching those half-filled fantasies that she knew would never come true of escaping. Perhaps that was why she glimpsed that tone, more of an epitaph to the dead than an apology. 

Despite her obnoxiousness, perhaps, just maybe, Beatrice was okay.

“What about you? Did you have a job before this? Or did you just appear on the river one day?” Beatrice gave a deep chuckle as she grinned, bracing herself on the pillar.

“The previous me’s job was bo~orish! A pathetic, endless cycle of servitude.” With an exaggerated gesture, she wiped a drop of nonexistent sweat from her forehead. 

“Was that your desire, then?”

“Mmm, no.” She clicked her tongue. “If I wanted to avoid boredom, I wouldn’t have signed up to be a sailor! I went off in search of something that I don’t know exists, like how the expert sommelier goes off in search of the perfect wine, not knowing what exactly it tastes or looks like.”

“You chose this life because of a concept.”

“Preciiisely! Some simply wish for the equivalent of a fresh-cooked omelette, while others long for the sweet, tender taste of a perfectly-torched creme brulee. No matter whatever kind of appetizer you wish to taste, no matter if it is toast or a parfait of dreams and clouds, the river shall do its best to provide for you as you struggle to reach your goal.” Some trace of her face reminded Natsuhi of a child, one so focused on dessert that they would eat any amount of healthy food to get at it. In a flash she remembered the rations stored belowdeck; dried meat, pickled fruits. Unlike the other two, Beatrice felt like a spoilt child, raised on dishes of sugar and honey.

It was a sort of diet only taken by people willing to dedicate their entire life to the sea; the prospective sailors who had started with dreams of adventure and ended after tasting the fare that would not spoil upon the water far outweighed those who lived on it. Such a commitment for years was not one to be taken lightly. And to give that life up for a mere concept that may not even exist? Pure foolishness, the kind that no amount of kindness could bolster. 

But, foolish as it was, it was enough to give her some sliver of pity, at this wretched thing crammed atop a raft. “If you’re lacking in food and willing to wait at the next dock, I can buy you food.” The noblesse oblige, always scratching at the back of her head, spoke in her place. At the very least, this hospitality was worth the cost of a first class ferry ticket, the rations she was eating. 

Beatrice’s face didn’t quite light up as it exploded in a shower of it, her body kneeling down to Natsuhi’s height as her body almost seemed to shake with excitement. “You would do that for a simple lighterman? That would be excellent! Does the dock have cream? Or strawberries? What about cookies?” 

“You’re going to become sick if you have to eat all that before it expires.” 

“I’ll be fiiiiine.” She pouted a little. “Food is the best way to experience a new area, after all.” 

With a sigh, she supposed that she wouldn’t be the one to have to clean vomit off the barge if that happened. “Very well. There should be a port coming up the day after tomorrow.”  _ If you are the one who is still lingering  _ she added, unspoken but not unthought _. _

Beatrice’s expression could only be described as gleeful, the stars behind her eyes no doubt dreaming of whatever delicacies she could imagine. It was almost like having six-year-old Jessica in the house once again, with all the ‘ _ mom! look look look it looks good can you buy that? _ ’ it entailed. But, perhaps—perhaps that sort of adventure, leaving one’s own life behind for a mere promise—perhaps that was the sort of thing somebody like her would do. Because that was what she did. She had to discard whatever life she had there, abandon it to rot for some uncertain, terrifying future, at the whim of the world. It was like—

_ Like she did once, right? _

Nostalgia had long since tinted many of those painful memories a soft pink; a last kiss from her mother. A hug from her dad. The fear of the unknown still dulled those memories. 

If that past version of herself had that choice, what would she have done? Abandon everything and flee, searching for something to save her family? Or accept the equally terrifying unknown of the Ushiromiya family? She wasn’t sure. It was how one might speak great volumes of how they would fight a pickpocket, but freeze up when they glimpsed muscle, a knife. That old her was dead; there could be no raising her back, for there was not even a grave to rob her corpse from. 

“Hoh? Is there something on my face?” Beatrice’s voice, high and playful, snapped her out of realizing that she had been staring, lost in her own thoughts.

“Your face is fine.” With another sigh, she took a mental inventory of the woman in front of her. “Your bun is loose, though. Do you want me to adjust it?”

She had learned long ago that any semblance of hair care on a ship was an oxymoron, just like  _ deafening silence  _ or  _ walking dead _ . One either abandoned their tresses to the elements, or hacked it short. But, with her, she seemed to escape the worst of it as she sat down in front of Natsuhi. It parted seamlessly under her fingers as she undid the braids, kept in place by clips and sheer grit, until it spilled down her back. 

It was a lot like Jessica’s, when push came to shove. The same thickness and color she had gotten from Krauss. It was easy to braid, easy to comb.

“It hurrrrts!” Beatrice groaned after a moment, hands flying to her head and she huddled over like some sort of cat in the rain. 

“I am doing this as gently as I can.” Years of raising Jessica had tamed her voice to the stern but calm caricature it was now, polite but unrelenting.

“Be gentler! Treat me like a newborn kitten, ripped away from her mother’s milk!“ Beatrice pouted, an exaggerated frown gracing her lips as Natsuhi sighed again, fingers separating the strands of hair as she braided them. The style was just a tad off; the braids were the type she had seen up north, the bun from down south. For her, doing either required improvisation as she pinned the end result in place. 

With a sigh, she fished around in her dress pocket for a moment before her fingers touched the cold metal of the small pocket mirror her mother had given her decades ago. The silver in the filigree pockets had since tarnished compared to the rest, which is a dull grey from the years of her hands touching it. She typically kept it locked away, but she’d thought bringing it to the funeral was fitting; it was the one heirloom she had. “Here.”

She had expected some degree of interest, but Beatrice barely took a glance at her reflection before freezing and shoving a sleeve over it. 

“…….Your work is good.” She muttered, trying to smooth over the strange sight of her passing the mirror back with its face watching the ground. She almost looked guilty of something as she sulked with puffed cheeks, in that way that children could be. 

“Thank you.” Trying to deal with whatever sort of thing this was felt like above her pay grade, so she brushed it to the side. It was probably one of those side effects from being on the water so long, barely interacting with others. Beatrice probably only rarely  _ talked _ with others like this, and even then, it barely counted as interaction, simply another go-round in the cycle of loneliness, going from alone to clinging onto the coattails of anybody who showed interest in you, and then back to loneliness again as they were put off by the clinginess. It wasn’t like she had never felt that, isolated from everything else and desperate to at least have some trace of decent human contact. 

It was probably just the proximity to the wake that she was feeling like this, her younger years coming to mind more and more readily as she thought about it. Or perhaps it was Beatrice herself, that strange stab of pity she was feeling for this poor woman who tossed everything aside, who gave up on her future, or—

Or maybe, she didn’t give up. If she had truly given up, would she still be here, on this raft? For her, wouldn’t giving up mean returning to the life she was otherwise meant to lead? A calm but busy life as a servant, compared to the utter chaos on the water. That was their difference, she thought, as she watched the woman, striking up conversation a couple times before the sky dimmed.

* * *

She awoke the next morning to Kanon, one of the fishing rods from belowdecks clutched in his hands just inside the canopy. No other traces of life nearby, save for the two of them. 

Perhaps this meant that there were only three of whatever was going on here, this strange trio tied aboard this barge. It would, at least, lessen the headache as Kanon continued to fish, not even bothering to give a wayward glance in her direction. Idly watching the shore was fine; she didn’t know the area with the grace of a hardened sailor, no; only enough to know where home was. Enough to look at the stars and know where to go. But they were gone, covered up by clouds and water, the tiny pinpricks of light, harbingers of thousands of stories as children traced their outlines in the sky, were nothing. There was only the two of them and the lonely world. Such it was now, and such it was years ago, when she was merely a child. Such was the outcome of a strong monsoon season. Unlike here, with its narrow veins of water snaking over the land, the sea allowed massive, sturdy ships to enter its domain, allowed people and chatter and goods all at once. Pure chaos, as people swarmed over each other like a massive armada of ants. A sort of organized chaos, the type you learned to step to the beat of. 

Her mind drifted yet again to Kanon, just for a moment. Was Kanon a sailor before? How did he adapt? Beatrice, she imagined, would have gone kicking and screaming at the stale rations, the lack of toilets. He had been doing this for years, hadn’t he? Did he start first, before the other two? He seemed to have a practiced hand as he glanced out over the river. Perhaps that was related to what he had said, that  _ the river provides _ . Would that mean food? She glimpsed rations below, and just eating whatever bugs or fish you found on the river seemed repulsive, at the least. Even a hardened sailor would pale at the thought. But, on the other hand, a sailor he was not. Wasn’t a sailor, maybe wasn’t even human. Just some sort of entity, drifting where the water takes him, just like in the stories. 

Just like the stories, he didn’t feel like a whirlwind of malice. Simply a force, like the sun or wind. Not benevolent or malevolent, per say. Just there, like the gargoyle statues snarling in the city square. 

The sky was still stealing away any remnants of time, so all she had for reference for when Kanon finally landed something was that she was getting hungry. It wasn’t the type of loud, boisterous clamoring that always seemed to accompany the sailors catching something; it was calmer. He simply stood up as he braced himself against one of the pillars, looping an arm around it before taking the time to slowly reel it in, waiting for whatever was on the line to tire itself out before making a move until, finally, it was flopping on the deck, frantically trying to escape back to the water. Kanon paused to catch his breath before pulling out a knife he had sheathed in his belt, positioning the line and the knife just right before pulling his hand up and-

She looked away, but it didn’t mask the sound of the squelch of knife piercing flesh, nor did it hide the blood slowly trickling across the deck to under her feet. That was fine, of course. Fine. Perfectly reasonable. She was a lady of noble blood, and as such, the rainwater stained with innards and gore and flesh did not affect her. It did not, not even as she closed her eyes and lifted her skirts to avoid it staining them, leaning against a pillar for support. Her brain unhelpfully filled in what the different sounds of skinning, gutting and cutting the fish meant as she raised a hand to her temples. Thankfully, it sounded like he knew what he was doing, and the varying squelches were all short and to the point.

“Breakfast’s ready.” She tentatively opened an eye to Kanon, surprisingly clean given the gore streaming across the deck like a miniature explosion. Despite the rain pouring across the deck, there was only so much blood and scales it could move at a time. And, in the center, was Kanon, holding what appeared to be a raw fillet, still dripping with blood. 

“I’d prefer not to eat raw fish,” she replied, eyeing the hunk of meat warily. She’d had it raw before, but that was always prepared by a verifiable army of chefs that knew exactly what they were doing, not a scrawny man who’d killed it on the deck of a barge not ten minutes ago. 

“Suit yourself, then.” With a shrug, Kanon lifted a strip of the raw (!) fish to his mouth (!!) before biting down on it (!!!), not seeming to care that he hadn’t even treated it, or smoked it, or anything of that ilk.

“You’re going to get sick.” Kanon greeted her polite but pointed statement-no, the fact-with a pointed glare as he chewed, as if to say  _ I told you so _ like a child, before keeping their eyes locked as he swallowed. It was the kind of in-your-face, obnoxious taunt that was only undertaken when somebody wanted to hammer in some point of point.

“The river gave it to me. It’s fine.” Once again, he bit down while looking her dead in the eyes, as if to challenge her as she stared back. It was annoying and immature, but she sighed as the ever-present refrain of  _ you are a noble, you are above some petty squabble _ rippled through her head as she took a step back to evaluate her options. The rain probably would not stop at any point in the near future, so cooking was out of the question. She’d glimpsed the rations belowdecks as well: not enough to sustain her for the rest of the trip. Which meant that noblesse oblige, that sense of duty always nagging in the back of her head, kept scratching at her thoughts, whispering about how  _ he is doing this for free, you at least owe it to him to do what you can to reduce your eating his rations _ , until she had stretched out a hand to take a piece. 

Another sigh as she stretched out just the index and thumb to pick up a slice, like one might do when holding a decaying rat. It felt, unsurprisingly like fish; slimy and warm, with blood that was almost certainly burrowing beneath her fingernails. 

She stared at the meat. The meat stared back.

It tasted surprisingly good. Perhaps even better than what the family chef prepared, not that she’d ever willingly tell him that. 

Kanon only seemed to give a look that said finally as he stashed the pole beneath the deck once again.

* * *

  
Ages ago, when the earth was young, the lightermen appeared, gliding along the rivers like phantoms. That was where they began, and that was where they would remain, eternally. 

Once, a general took passage aboard one of the ships, not revealing his identity. By doing this, he was able to sneak past and win a crucial battle. But then they found out, and the river swallowed him whole. 

A queen once took the ferry, and fell in love with the lighterman aboard. She was beautiful; dark skin, soft eyes. She had begged for her hand in marriage, but she was bound to the river. She kept asking the river, until finally, she received an ultimatum: if she would pledge never to set eyes on her kingdom again, they could be joined. Her mother had smiled a little at the end of that story, telling her that if you wandered far enough and long enough at the water’s edge, you may catch a glimpse of the two, hands clasped together atop a beautiful vessel. 

* * *

She did not get the chance to rouse with the sun. For one thing, the sun was still shrouded in a veil of clouds, and for another, Beatrice was far too excited to let her catch a full bout of sleep. 

“Natsuhiiiiiii.” Another wiggle as the woman rocked her shoulder from side to side. “Naaaaatsuhiiiiii. C’moooon, you said you’d get me food!” 

She was no stranger to rude awakenings, but this type of thing was just obnoxious as she scooted her body away from the overenthusiastic mass of hair and silk, sitting up as much as the lower deck allowed her to as she ran a couple fingers through her hair. “Why are you waking me up at this hour?”

“Sweets! You promised me.” She gave a bit of a pout that she could barely see in the grey light of early morning. Right, she did promise that, and Natsuhi Ushiromiya was not the type to go back on promises once they were made. 

“I take it that you found the port, then?” Beatrice nodded, the movement shaking the hair flowing down her back into a rippling cascade. 

“We’re right outside it.” As Beatrice stretched her arms, the sleeves seemed to follow, trailing her form. “I had to slow the barge down during the night so we didn’t miss it. It’s already docked.”

“Already?” With a groan, she rubbed her forehead, pushing down the headache that had already threatened to form, thanks to Beatrice’s rude awakening. 

“Mmm. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.” Had Beatrice’s body been capable of vibrating like a plucked violin string, it would have been. Every iota of her was tense with excitement, like one of those stray cats with its ears back and eyes narrowed to slits. 

“I will go there when I am ready,” she sighed as she brushed off the overeager lighterman, dusting off her underclothes and digging up one of her more neutral dresses from her suitcase before finally following Beatrice out into the light. 

It was just as the woman had said. The barge was crassly parked on the bank, its bottom grounded against the dirt on the shore, not the docks nearby, though it was near enough that the rain falling down in sheets wouldn’t be unbearable. 

“You are going to stay here, right?” She doubted that Beatrice would run away if it meant losing out on food, but it was always best to confirm such a thing. 

“I promised you. I don’t go back on my promises.” With a very pronounced, exaggerated motion, she collapsed next to the pillar, clutching it as if it were a lifeline. And that was that. 

Natsuhi, with her purse, tried her best to skirt the downpour as it clung to her clothes on the way to the dock, before nervously shaking the bag again as the market came into view. Her mind was more attuned to the large purchases, the business deals, the monthly paychecks to the servants who actually did the shopping than something like this. It was a bag of sweets, after all. How much was it supposed to cost, anyways? Fifty gold pieces?

(as it turned out, a small bag of caramel and honey cost less than five.)

Walking back in the rain was just as annoying as walking towards the place, but Beatrice and her raft didn’t so much as budge from the shore. On the contrary, as Natsuhi held the bag up in mock victory, she stood up, eyes glittering and fixated on them as she handed them over. She didn’t seem to care about the rations aside from tossing them belowdecks as she tore open the packaging for the caramel.

“If you have never had that before, I can get more.”  _ Or if you eat all of it before we leave _ . The food was cheaper than a ticket, and mere copper compared to the hospitality she had been given, even if it could only be described as strange. 

“I’ve had it before, just not in a while. Part of the contract.” The words were slurred from the candy, melted in her mouth and tugging her syllables just a little bit askew, as she reached for the quant pole and rammed it into the shore. Natsuhi had long ago learnt the language of the unspoken, those trailing statements and gentle prods begging the other to ask for more information.

As much as she wanted to reply immediately, she held her tongue as Beatrice, with an expert eye, thrust the pole into the silt and water, guiding the barge once again into the stream before speaking again. “The contract?” 

“Mmm. You can’t become one without one.” With a lurch, she forced the vessel from the calm waters of the harbor into the river once again, the waters rising to carry them in Beatrice’s stead as the flow began to clutch and tug into its own path. As she did, the stray waves of the river, unbounded by the motion of the water, seemed to almost catch her body, drenching it. Aside from a single shiver, she didn’t seem to care. “It cements your bond with the river, per say. Do you know how to form one?“

In a blink, Beatrice’s playful demeanor was gone, those excited, spoilt gestures replaced with pure ice. The hair of her neck, plastered close by the rain, began to stand on end as Beatrice took a step forwards, her drenched hair plastered to her back, her soaked dress latching onto her body. She did not have those former airs of grandeur. All that remained was a poor, wretched woman who looked more like a phantom than a human. 

That was what it felt like. Like once she had learnt of this, it would haunt her through the rest of her days. Or, perhaps if it didn’t haunt her, it would nag at her, a perpetual record playing in the back of her brain. A slow, skipping record, shuffling between her life now the knowledge that she could leave everything behind her; the politics. Kinzo. That old, nagging memory of a single scream, followed by the awful, liquid  _ squelch _ made by a human body falling dozens of meters to its death. 

Maybe that was what motivated her to open her mouth. She couldn’t say, for Natsuhi Ushiromiya was not the type of person to run away, no matter how many times her mind looped those happy,  _ better _ scenarios over and over again, an unending loop of a snake eating her own tail. Sometimes, it was worth to have something else playing on endless repeat in the back of her head, instead of those endless repetitions of that moment from two decades ago. 

“No, I don’t.”

“Everybody has something chaining them down somewhere. To a specific place.” Beatrice took another step closer to her, to the point where a single move would have their bodies touch. “To become a keeper, you need to throw that away.”

The blonde held a damp hand out to Natsuhi’s face, without breaking eye contact. Her breath caught in her throat as the hand traced her face, goosebumps breaking out where the water touched as the other woman’s eyes have caught her in their gaze, like deer in a ray of light. 

“Do you want to know what I threw away to get like this? To free myself?” Her entire body seemed to be pulsing with some unseen energy, sending Natsuhi to lean back just a little from her touch. That was the word for it: intense. Everything in her body was  _ burning _ , burning with some sort of desire, that thin tightrope between the relief of telling another of your woes and the universal fear of being known. 

“What?” 

Beatrice’s unblinking eyes met hers again. “Ten tons of gold.” Her hand left Natsuhi’s face, leaving only the cold dampness of the rain as her eyes drifted back to the river. “I had to dump it all in the river myself. It took me the better part of a month, just walking back and forth.” With those words finished weighing down her tongue, Beatrice’s face slowly gained the beginnings of a self-satisfied smirk as she continued, spinning on her heel as she raised her hands to the river.“And even when I gave the river that, it still asked for my engagement ring! So I threw that in there, just for good measure!” There was a lengthy, jeering laugh at the end, as if this entire conversation was some sort of inside joke between herself and the universe.

The true weight of it took a moment to settle onto Natsuhi’s shoulders; both the weight of the action, the weight of the gold. Ten tons was ...how many lifetimes of an average servant’s labor would that cost? Dozens? No, it had to be hundreds, hundreds of lifetimes of wealth that she had thrown away. For what, a marriage she disliked? “You really traded that much because of a marriage?”

She gave a soft, pitying look. “No matter what I would have done, it would not have worked out. But now? I’m  _ free _ . Not furniture anymore. Not bound by my own ropes.”Her words, like the rest of her logic, were nonsense. 

“What kind of person were they?” 

“The kind who would not love furniture.” Her words had a soft, wistful tingle to them as she had reached, almost instinctively, to rub her ring finger, as if to adjust an invisible ring atop it. But she did not have the warm steel wrapped around Natsuhi’s finger, only a coat of rain covering them. That was the second time she had used that word,  _ furniture _ , spoken as if she were no more charismatic than a chair or table. 

“What do you mean by that?”

“No human can love furniture. That is why I made that pact.” Her words, again, were strange, acting as if she had read some constant, underpinning fine print to the universe which jotted down  _ Beatrice can never be loved  _ in fine black ink. 

“You had money. Surely you could’ve worked something out.” She had seen enough of the world to know that love, like many other things, could be bought. It was not a straightforward transaction, but it could happen; the offer of a roof over a head, a kind shoulder, no longer worrying about making ends meet could mean the difference between a miserable life and a happy one. And Beatrice, for all her flaws she had witnessed, was not a bad person. Had she offered that chance at a happy life to somebody lonely, looking for the same kind of affection, she would have gotten it. 

Beatrice merely shook her head. “There are some things money cannot fix. Some things even the river can’t fix.”

“Then why did you take it?” If running, starting a new life using those lifetimes of money was an option, then why choose a life on the river? 

“Because there’s something I want to see that only it can show me.” That was what she had mentioned earlier; some sort of abstract, an unknown concept that would only become known when she laid eyes upon it.

“The thing that you don’t know what it is.”

Beatrice only gave a wistful smile. “I’m not entirely sure what it looks like. Just that I’ll know it when I see it.”

“And you truly believed that?” That her life could be discarded like a stained rag from that sort of thing, a cushy life abandoned for some ideal that she would be chasing for the rest of her life? 

“No, I know that the river will show it to me.” She stretched a little, squeezing her hair into a twist as the water dripped down to the deck. “It’s a roulette of sorts. You just need to wait long enough to game the chances.”

“With money, you could’ve done the same thing.”

“What I want is a version of myself…” she closed her eyes as she swayed with the river on the heels of her feet. “that was able to live their life to the fullest. Not bound down by the chains of furniture. Able to be loved. I just want to see that.” There was some sort of look, one that both pierced and saw right through her, as if to both blame her for keeping her from a goal while simultaneously looking beyond the horizon, obscured by grey. 

“So this was a pact for personal happiness,” she replied, voice low. If that was the case, she was trading wealth for some chance at that, giving up everything so that she may drift through life as if she was a corpse. Abandoning everything for something she would have gained more easily on land. But Beatrice only frowned, that strange gaze gone, replaced with something different, a sort of disappointment clouding her features. 

“No. It’s not for my own happiness,” she said, her voice low and somber. 

“You just said it was.”

“Mmmmm. Perhaps I should reword myself. What I want is not for my own happiness. There was something that happened when I was younger. That something twisted me into who you see before you. But, this is not the ‘me’ I want to be.” 

Natsuhi didn’t understand a single word she spoke. 

Those eyes kept pleading, expecting something in return as Beatrice stayed silent. But she wasn’t sure what to say to that. Not even when she spoke to her later. She was silent, not saying a word. Just giving her that lonely, begging gaze. 

She did not speak, not even as the sky darkened into night, not even as she began to glimpse those familiar glowing points that seem eons away; the lighthouses on the bay. The one at the top of the church tower where she got married. The string of lights in the merchant district, always awake and active. She could place a name to almost every one as they began to light up, the bustle of night and all it brought bringing them, flickering, to life, a beautiful, manmade constellation. Such a sight meant an equivalent amount of distance; perhaps another day of travel before she could stand under that miniature twinkling galaxy, with the chatter and scent that had long become white noise cocooning her in familiar sights and sound. Just that small eternity before she would return to her life, blend in once again to the crowd. To never see this raft again, this small hunk of wood able to make the journey in six days, winding down the river in the same time a ferry would only take four. 

She could see why there were stories about them, these strange, enigmatic people bound to the river. Even now, Beatrice was not offering an answer to that sad, lonely look, nor to how the three lightermen-Shannon, Kanon, and herself-could coexist upon a single raft. The three could take those secrets, sail upon them on the river until they found whatever that strange thing they were looking for. 

* * *

The skyline of the city the next day was, for once, not muddied by clouds. It was that soft pink glow that warmed her body as the sun began to climb up and over, scaling the buildings and sea. Shannon, for once, seemed content to sit on the edge of the bow, feet dipping into the water and tracing slow, indescribable patterns in the depths. 

“You’ll be getting off soon.” Shannon’s voice carried over the river, weaving through the weeds and trees and small brooks on the bank. “Where do you want to get off?”

“Choose whichever dock is most convenient for you. I have the money to get to where I need from there. And thank you. For doing this for me.” Thanking her with a bow felt strange, to give deference to this woman dressed only in plainclothes with skin reddened from the sun. Shannon, on the other hand, barely seemed to notice the magnitude of the action as she almost jumped out of the water to snatch the quant pole, tapping it alongside the river to guide it towards the docks. The odd barge or boat drifting along in the early morning seemed to give her little mind as the two of them glided upon the surface. 

In a way, the hubbub of the city never felt so familiar and foreign all at once; the clamor of merchants, the children yelling and splashing each other at the water’s edge, the fishermen casting their lines. The closer they got to the shore, the stranger it felt, as if the two of them were exploring a new, strange city with nothing but the clothes on their backs. 

With the solid  _ thunk _ of wood meeting wood, she felt the barge lurch under her feet, forcing her to stumble forward until she had nearly fell onto the docks. The first step onto them, solid ground under her feet for the first time in almost a week, felt like mud under her legs, like the stability could cut out at any moment as she moved her weight further and further off the barge, her luggage following suit as she turned to meet Shannon’s eyes one more time. Her mind flipped through all the appropriate goodbyes until, finally, she settled on a single one, the single verbal blessing that she knew Shannon would want.

“I hope you are able to find what you wanted to find.” For all the genuine feelings behind those words, they still felt off; even now, she didn’t truly grasp what exactly Shannon had wanted. “Do you think you will find it near here?”

She clicked her tongue once, twice as she cast her eyes to the horizon yet again. “Not in this fragment, no. Maybe in the next one.”

Even though she had no idea what she meant by the words, those polite, upper-class “I hope the next fragment treats you nicely” still form with a small smile, that same confused but genuine energy behind them.

“So do I.” The words were tired as she leaned her full weight onto her quant pole, almost as if she was bored. Her posture dipped, from those alert, upright shoulders to something more sullen, more weary, pulled down by the weight of the world. But there was still that arcane energy to her movements, the kind of silent determination that screamed, dared the world to beat her down again. “I hope for both our sakes that the next ‘you’ I meet is a kinder one.”

Before she could reply, Shannon pushed that full, spindly weight of her body off onto the pole, separating the two. In an instant, the two of them were separated by a meter of water, growing by the second as the river guided Shannon from the port to the mouth of the wharf. The movement wasn’t what caught her attention but the face, the face. She had those lonely eyes, still pleading for something, just like Beatrice’s were. 

In that moment, there was almost something nostalgic in her features and expression. Natsuhi couldn’t quite place her finger on it, but she swears she’d seen the lighterman’s face before, decades ago. 

Before she could call out, to ask what that nagging record in the back of her memories was, her eyes blinked. It was only for a split second, that same period of time that it would take for a match to extinguish, for a heart to beat. When they opened back to the sight of the river, both lighterman and barge had vanished. There were no ripples in the water, no glimpse of such a thing anywhere down or upstream. It was as if she had winked out of existence, leaving not a trace behind as the other barges continued their long, meandering journeys to their destinations. 

Even as her gaze kept searching the waterline, no familiar trace of the lighterman appeared. No matter how hard she looked, no matter how long the sun beat down upon her neck. So she glanced away from the waterline to the city, with all its glittering lights and smoke and  _ family _ , all tied up in one package, and sighed. It would be hard to properly explain such an inconvenience, especially to somebody like Kinzo, but she would manage. She was a woman of the Ushiromiya family; in all her time with the head, she had dealt with far stranger.

She can only hope that means Shannon finds whatever it is she is looking for. 


End file.
